Washington
Cnn
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The Chinese spy ball that has passed through the United States earlier this year was able to capture images and collect electromagnetic information from American military sites, a source close to the file told CNN.
The ball was able to transmit information to Beijing in real time, said the source, and the US government still does not know with certainty if the Chinese government will be able to erase the data from the ball as it received it. This raises the question of whether there is information that the ball has been able to collect and of which the United States is still not aware.
However, the intelligence community was not too concerned with the information that the ball was able to collect, explained the source, because they are not much more sophisticated than those that Chinese satellites are able to glean when they orbit above similar places.
An American intelligence official told CNN on Monday that “even if the wreckage of the high altitude wreckage remains in progress, so far, his overview of the United States does not seem to have provided new crucial information to the People’s Republic of China”.
The United States also knew what would be the trajectory of the ball and were able to protect sensitive sites and censor certain signals before the ball could capture them, officials said.
As CNN reported, the American intelligence community developed a method last year to follow what it says to be a fleet of these Chinese balls operating around the world, controlled by the Chinese army.
The FBI is still examining the ball, but so far, managers have been able to glean additional information on the operation of the device, including the algorithms used for balloon software and the way it is powered and designed.
CNN contacted the National Security Council of the White House and Pentagon to obtain their comments. NBC was the first to report on this new information.
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The balloon first crossed the American airspace above Alaska at the end of January before crossing Canada and descending into Montana, where it hovered for a few days, letting believe in the United States that it was trying to monitor sensitive military sites, such as Malmstrom’s air base in Montana. He was finally shot dead by the United States off the east coast on February 4, and the incident still exacerbated tensions between Washington and Beijing, including the postponement of a diplomatic visit by American Secretary of State Antony Blinken in China.
A senior State Department official said in February that, when the ball was floating above the United States, it “was able to conduct electromagnetic information collection operations”.
General Glen Vanherck, commander of the northern command of the United States and the Norad, said at the time that the United States “had not evaluated” that the ball “presented a risk of significant collection beyond what already exists in terms of usable technical means on the part of the Chinese”.
The surveillance program, which includes a number of similar balls, is partly managed from the small Chinese province of Hainan, officials told CNN. The United States does not know the precise size of the fleet of Chinese surveillance balls, but sources indicate to CNN that the program has carried out at least two dozen missions on at least five continents in recent years.
About half-dozen of these flights took place in American airspace, but not necessarily above the American territory, according to a manager close to the intelligence services.
China argued that the ball was in reality only a weather balloon deviated from its trajectory, and the United States has evaluated the possibility that it was not deliberately maneuvered towards the continental territory of the United States by the Chinese government, CNN reported.
China has nevertheless retained a certain capacity to maneuver the ball, the managers believe. And once the ball is overflied by Montana, China seemed to take advantage of its position to stroll on sensitive sites and try to collect information.
This story has been updated with additional reports.
